The other day I blogged about an LA Times page that had a compilation of stories the Times ran on playwrights (lol, I started to type playwrights with a cap C, as if I was thinking it was a proper noun like, I daresay, God?) and I've been scanning through them from time to time. Interesting reading, yes, and as I wrote before, writers are writers. Famous, successful writers are still cut from the same cloth as the likes of me and right now, at this stage of the game for me, I find that exceedingly comforting.

Anyway, this little bit from Jane Anderson came to mind this morning, in the shower where I do my best thinking. Anderson is directing her own play, and was talking about that there is a time for the playwright to leave the theater and let the actors go on about their business without the playwright injecting even more pressure on the actors trying to discover their roles. "Writers are free to blunder without fear of judgment (unless you count our own internal critics, who are unfailingly harsh). Getting lost is part of the creative process, and actors must have freedom to wander and explore. This applies to the theater director as well, especially if he or she is working on a new play that's never been decoded before."

It came to mind because if you could only see the twists and turns I'm making right now on the play that I'm working on. If anyone could see me, they'd right off take me for an incompetent. My only defense at this point would be the seventy-some previous pages that I think stand up pretty well for themselves. I reassure my students all the time, the first draft is going to suck. It is, just accept it. And even if perchance your first draft comes out pretty good, that means it can only get better from there. It's the nature of the beast, the nature of writing that we struggle with plot twists and nuances in character. JSYK, it's the nuances that I'm having a time with right now. I wrote a bit of dialogue last night in bed before turning out the light, and this morning thought to myself, Wait a minute, Bella would never talk like that. That's Angela intruding (from another play, as Angela has a way of doing.) Bella is tough, but part of her charm is how soft and sweet she is, too. That's what makes people like her, but then there is this hard side that really hurts. And that's pretty much the imagery for a turtle, isn't it.